Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service, Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, and other nonprofit groups in cities with high percentages of low-income homeowners have helped thousands at risk of losing their homes due to unpaid property taxes.

Legal nonprofits help homeowners by providing free legal assistance, helping them get tax credits to lower their taxes, and working to reduce taxes on properties that are assessed higher than they’re valued. Working with advocacy groups and governments, the legal groups also push for legislative and systemic changes to address a growing problem made worse during the Covid pandemic. Without the legal assistance, many low-income homeowners could lose their houses.

Christopher Berry, a University of Chicago professor and expert on property-tax fairness, said in a 2021 report, property taxes disproportionately burden owners of the least valuable homes. Berry found that property-tax rates are 50% higher in neighborhoods where more than 90% of the residents are Black.

Margaret Henn, director of program management at the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service, said in the past, people who needed foreclosure assistance were usually struggling with mortgage payments. But from 2008 to 2014, most of the nonprofit’s clients had paid off their mortgages. Instead, unpaid property taxes were causing the foreclosure threats.

Baltimore didn’t keep foreclosure data before 2020, according to the lawyers, but based on the cases the nonprofit was handling, nonpayment of property taxes led to many foreclosures. By 2020, 1,015 homeowners in Baltimore faced foreclosure due to unpaid property taxes, according to a Maryland tax office 2021 report.

Read the full article about legal nonprofits by Kristen Griffith at Associated Press News.